Tonjiru

Pork and roots fried in sesame oil first, simmered long, with the miso still added off the heat.

Pork, Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, pork.

Ingredients

• 300 g pork belly, in thin strips
• 1 daikon, in quarter-rounds
• 1 carrot, in quarter-rounds
• 1 burdock root, shaved
• 200 g taro, in chunks
• 150 g konnyaku, torn
• 1.5 litres dashi
• 5 tablespoons miso
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon sake
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• shichimi, to serve

Method

1. A MEAL SOUP, NOT A BOWL ALONGSIDE ONE. The miso soup on this site is dashi, tofu and seaweed and takes five minutes; this is pork and five root vegetables simmered half an hour and is dinner. The kenchin-jiru between them has no meat and no fish at all.
2. FRY THE PORK AND ROOTS IN SESAME OIL BEFORE ANY LIQUID. The pork renders, the roots take up that fat, and the soup gets a depth that simmering alone cannot give it.
3. Pork in the sesame oil, 5 minutes, until the fat runs and the edges brown.
4. Burdock in first of the roots, 3 minutes, then daikon, carrot and taro, 5 minutes, turning.
5. Burdock into water the moment it is cut, or it browns.
6. Konnyaku torn and blanched, as on the kenchin-jiru page.
7. Dashi and sake in. Simmer 25 to 30 minutes until everything is tender, skimming the foam in the first ten.
8. THE MISO STILL GOES IN OFF THE HEAT, exactly as for the plain miso soup, and boiling it afterwards flattens it just the same. A long-simmered soup does not change that rule.
9. Heat off. Miso worked smooth in a ladle of the hot broth, then released.
10. Taste -- a soup this full of vegetables needs more miso than a plain one. Spring onion and shichimi in the bowl. Better the next day, reheated without boiling.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes